Card Writing Tray/Basket

Bear is in a sensitive stage for writing for a purpose.  A year ago at 2.5 years, she was in a sensitive stage for writing her letters.  For days, all she did was trace a letter tracing printable from Confessions of a Homeschooler that I had laminated for her.  These days, I find her daily at her table writing notes to friends, mom and dad, and teachers.

"Hannah, thank you for a wigle crd." 

Translation: Hannah, thank you for a wiggly card.

(The wiggly card being one of those where the image changes as you tilt the card.)

One way I have encouraged her writing is by providing her with various paper sizes and types.  For a while, her favorite paper was the free grocery lists available at the entrance of Publix.

She also has access to various writing implements: pencils, markers, crayons, colored pencils, shiny pens...

Since her very favorite thing by far is to make cards I have made her a card making basket.

In a wire tray, I have included a stamp or two, a tiny ink pad, a sponge to clean the stamps, and blank pieces of card stock I have pre-folded for her (although the cards could be left unfolded for folding practice).  There are also some fancy scrapbooking pens in there.   This is what she is creating with in the top photo.

How do you encourage writing in your homes? 

linked to Preschool Corner and to Writer's World

 

Read more...

Artists and Art - Wassily Kandinsky revisited

Going to Bear's school once a month to do Artists and Art is very fun.  I miss teaching, and this is a good, stress free way to still teach (big groups) while being a stay at home mom.  

Finding a project that works for the 2.5 to 6 year old age range can sometimes be challenging.  This is why I chose Matisse last month and why this month we ended up revisiting an artist for which Bear and I had already done quite a few projects.  You can see our previous Wassily Kandinsky projects here, here, here, and here.

Wassily Kandinsky just happens to lend himself well to this age group because even the youngest can draw circles and lines.

I did manage to come up with a different version of something we had already done by changing and combining different art media.  So instead of just using paint and only painting lines, we used paint and markers and drew/painted shapes and lines.  This was mostly because I wanted to do a painting project but with 15 to 18 kids at a time, I wanted to limit the paint to 1 color to see how the students handled paint and the responsibility associated with it.  Hence, the students drew shapes with markers, then painted black lines over the composition of shapes.

I used mostly this biography of him, changing the words a bit for the audience, showing pictures from Kandinsky by Francois le Targat as I read it.  This was about the only book I could find at the library about Kandinsky.

First we talked about lines.  I showed them this poster.

Then they practiced drawing lines with markers on a piece of manila paper.

Then we talked about shapes.

They drew shapes on the white paper.

Once they were ready, they painted black lines over or around the shapes.

This gave an effect similar to Kandinsky's Composition VIII, which I had shown at the beginning and led them in a discussion of what we could see in terms of lines and shapes.

This post also linked to stART

and to Read.Explore.Learn

and to Kids Get Crafty

Read more...

Artists and Art

I did tell one reader I'd have the post up today.  However, if I wait until tomorrow I will have photos to go with the post.  So look for the Artist and Art post tomorrow.  I will be doing the linky regularly on Tuesdays again starting next week.  Sorry it has been missing or not on the right day the past few weeks.  We have been busy and I have been too tired.

Read more...

Field Trip! Fire Station

Our mom's group organized this and it was very interesting.  J-jo really enjoyed it (Bear was at school).  I highly recommend calling the fire department near you to arrange to go see inside a fire station.  We'll be going back soon so Bear can enjoy the tour too.

We read Going to the Firehouse by Mercer Meyer (one of Bear's independent reads) before going.

If anyone has good fire truck (or firefighter) printables or ideas, please let me know.  J-jo is smitten.

linked to Read. Explore. Learn

Read more...

Tot Shelves

This is J-jo’s corner. 


Top Shelves: Math (counting and one to one correspondence)

Peg train


Homemade counting toy (colored pencils in Styrofoam block and beads from bead lacing)


Middle Shelf: Practical Life/Sensorial

Pouring green buttons

Guidecraft feel and find


Bottom Shelf: Sensorial

Guidecraft Shape Sorter

Plan Toy shape sorter


On the Table:


Toothpicks in parmesan container from last week

Parking Lot Counting – from Happy Brown House. I plan on using ours without a dice this week; it will be more for one to one correspondence and counting as opposed to number matching. 

/c/ Sound basket.  We’ve been saying Spell Outloud’s cat rhyme at circle time (as well as her astronaut one).

Had to leave this out for another week too.  Like the toothpicks, it was a big hit.  I have set it up so that the circles are on the floor and the slots are on the chair so that he has to squat to pick up the circles.  This increases physical activity and works his gross motor skills.



linked to 1+1+1=1 and Barefoot in Suburbia's Toddler Tuesday.

Read more...

Sandstone–A Sedimentary Rock – Preschool Geology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock formed by the action of wind, ice, and water on older rock and is composed of sand-like crystals cemented together by other minerals.

The fascinating thing about sandstone is that when rubbed with another piece of sandstone, it will crumble into millions of tiny rocks!

We looked at sand through the magnifying glass and saw its crystal-like structure, as well as noticed that sand was not just one color.  We poured vinegar on the sand to see if anything would happen.  If you see bubbles when you do this it means that there are grains of once living things in the sand – like coral, bone, or shell.  

We also followed Karen Tyler’s presentation showing the importance of building a house on a firm foundation.

 

The guiding question: Would it be wise to build a house on a foundation of sand?

In a dish full of sand , we placed one flat rock.  We placed a plasticine house on the rock and also in the middle of the sand.  Then we sang The Silly Man/Wise Man song (in the album) and let it “rain” down on top of the houses with the watering can. Then we discussed what happened and she recorded it in her  science journal.

Linked to Preschool Corner.

My Picasa is full so Blogger won’t let me load any of my photos.  I’ll have to find a solution that doesn’t involve cutting and pasting html from flickr.

Read more...

Books - Some Recent Favorites

For the Preschooler:

Dear Mr. Blueberry is great for introducing how to write a letter with a salutation etc, but is also humorous because it is about a little girl who is convinced there is a blue whale in her pond.

Carmine A Little More Red - I love fractured fairy tales.  In fact, I may already have posted about this book, but we love it dearly.  I love how it has some fancy vocabulary like exquisite and knoll (although the word nincompoop is also in it).

How Rocket Loved to Read - either a Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns or Adventures in Mommydom recommendation.  J-jo loved the dog but wouldn't sit through the story.  Bear loved the story and asked for it repeatedly.


For the Toddler:

Time To Get Dressed

 Dinosaur Roar

 Rosie's Walk

 Asleep, Asleep - after the success of Animals Sleeping, I knew J-jo would love this similar book; and he does!

Loved by both:

 Sailing off to Sleep

 Jesse Bear, What will you Wear?

linked to Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Read more...

On Our Tot Shelves

Toothpicks into a parmesan container.

 

Please supervise closely if you do this with your tot.


The same colorful toothpicks in a styrofoam block (to keep him busy while Mommy ran out and Daddy did dishes)..

Guidecraft Feel and Find (but he just pulls out and matches).

Left: Roll and Match game (roll the dice and find a star of the same color).

Right: Beads (he had just finished stringing them when I took the picture.  I still have to help by holding the string.)


Top left to right: pegs on edge of container (hardly ever chooses this), matching animals to photos, matching cars to colors (I ended up replacing this with the toothpick in parmesan container activity)

Bottom: peg counting toy and button matching. 


Connect Four

Sensory Play: feathers!


Letter Sound Sorting – he actually did this alone.  Might have been a fluke.  He hasn’t wanted to do it since.  I sing a song for each letter sound as I show him the sandpaper letter. 

It’s partly borrowed from Leapfrog Letter Factory but I have changed the words to make it Montessori friendly (no letter names). 

“This is /a/.  This is /a/.  Every letter has a sound.  This is /a/.”

Tiny beads because he has to do whatever Bear is doing of course!
This was much too hard, but bear held him by holding the string and he got a couple on with lots of concentration.


linked to 1+1+1=1.

Read more...

Ores and Minerals - geology continued

Minerals
A mineral is a substance that is neither animal nor plant.  Halite is a common mineral used to make salt. Bear practiced saying "mineral" and "Halite" as I presented the next two works.

Pouring salt

Grinding salt

Salt Paintings

To be honest, we haven't had time to get to these, but we've used salt in painting many times.  Our favorite thing is to sprinkle it over watercolor paint and leave pretty effects.  I had planned to have her crush colored chalk with her mortar and pestle and color the salt with it.  Apparently, you can also color rock salt the same way you would pasta or rice, but we didn't try that eithre.

Ores
Ores are minerals that contain metallic material.  I created some cards to use with 4 of the ores in our box of rock specimens.  One card shows the ore and the matching card shows a product made from the metal extracted from that ore.  For example, gold ore  - gold necklace.  I only chose four ores so as to not overwhelm her.  I would have loved to have an actual copper bell to place in the basket next to the copper ore, or a real silver spoon.  The picture cards will have to suffice.

 

Read more...

Felted Soap

I love when I find an activity that can include J-jo.  At 18 months, these are limited, but soap felting was a great one.

 I got the tutorial from here via Sew Liberated, but I must say, I read the directions and then didn't quite follow them, so the product is nowhere as beautiful as the ones on the tutorial.  I used a lot less roving and did forgot pantyhose until further on in the process.

 In making, not quite finished.

Pretty much done, but a bit soapy.

 They're wonderful to have in the bath as they double as a washcloth.  The kids are loving using them and I wish I had made one for myself:)

Read more...

Baking with a Toddler

It's much easier to bake with a toddler if your preschooler is not around.  So J-jo and I try to bake alone together at least every other week. 

 I love to see his effort and concentration.

Read more...

Care of Plants for a Preschooler

 After reading this post at Mommy Moment (written by Jessie of Education of Ours), I immediately scoured the house to create our version of a Care of Plant work.

 

Since I put this on the shelf on Monday and presented it, Bear has dusted the Peace Lily each day.  My plants have never seen such love and tender care.

Thank you, Jessie:)

Read more...